“The depths of the mystery of the incarnation are open only unto Him whose understanding is infinite, which no created understanding can comprehend. All other things were produced and effected by an outward emanation of power from God.
He said, “Let there be light, and there was light.” But this assumption of our nature into hypostatical union with the Son of God, this constitution of one and the same individual person in two natures so infinitely distinct as those of God and man— whereby the Eternal was made in time, the Infinite became finite, the Immortal mortal, yet continuing eternal, infinite, immortal— is that singular expression of divine wisdom, goodness, and power, wherein God will be admired and glorified unto all eternity.
In the expression of this mystery, the Scripture does sometimes draw the veil over it, as that which we cannot look into. So, in His conception of the Virgin, with respect unto this union which accompanied it, it was told her, that “the power of the Highest should overshadow her” Luke 1:35.
A work it was of the power of the Most High, but hid from the eyes of men in the nature of it; and, therefore, that holy thing which had no subsistence of its own, which should be born of her, should “be called the Son of God,” becoming one person with Him.
Sometimes it expresseth the greatness of the mystery, and leaves it as an object of our admiration, 1 Tim. 3:16: “Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh.”
A mystery it is, and that of those dimensions as no creature can comprehend. Without controversy, great is this mystery of godliness! And in that state wherein He visibly appeared as so made flesh, those who had eyes given them from above, saw “His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father.”
The eternal Word being made flesh, and manifested therein, they saw his glory, the glory of the only-begotten of the Father. What heart can conceive, what tongue can express, the least part of the glory of this divine wisdom and grace?
So also is it proposed unto us, Isa. 9:6: “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”
He is called, in the first place, Wonderful. And that deservedly: Prov. 30:4. That the mighty God should be a child born, and the everlasting Father a son given unto us, may well entitle Him unto the name of Wonderful.
The glory of the same mystery is elsewhere testified unto, Heb. 1:1–3: “God hath spoken unto us by his Son, by whom also he made the worlds; who, being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, upholding all things by the word of his power, by himself purged our sins.”
That He purged our sins by His death, and the oblation of Himself therein unto God, is acknowledged. That this should be done by Him by whom the worlds were made, who is the essential brightness of the divine glory, and the express image of the person of the Father therein, who upholds, rules, sustains all things by the word of his power, whereby God purchased His church with His own blood, (Acts 20:28) is that wherein He will be admired unto eternity. See Phil. 2:6–9.
This is the glory of the Christian religion— the basis and foundation that bears the whole superstructure— the root whereon it grows.”
–John Owen, “A Declaration of the Glorious Mystery,” The Works of John Owen, Volume 1: The Glory of Christ (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1684/2000), 1: 46-48.
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